6/08/2006 @ 11:34AM

Anderson's Wendy's To Fry With Healthier Oil

Trans fat chance: There’s something about stepping into the air-conditioned domicile of fast-food joints like Wendy’s International that incites a twinge in the consumer conscience about healthy eating. Ordering a Diet Coke with that burger and fries might ease the guilt a little, but there are still all those trans fatty acids to worry about. As least, there was in Wendy’s case.

America’s third-largest burger joint, led by interim Chief Executive Kerrii B. Anderson has announced that it will start frying its french fries and breaded chicken in a non-hydrogenated oil. It means the amount of trans fat in those menu items will be cut by some 95%, a major reduction in an unsaturated fatty acid that has been implicated in heart disease and clogged veins.

The company says that its new blend of corn and soy oil, which it has developed over the last two years, has zero grams of trans fat per serving. A large order of french fries, for instance, falls from 7 grams to 0.5 grams while an order of fries from the kids’ menu will have zero grams.

Wendy’s International exec Lori Estrada told The Associated Press that the company was veering towards healthier eating. “We wanted to look at our products and improve our nutritional profile,” she said, adding that the fries and sandwiches cooked in the new oil would taste and cost the same.

Incidentally, Wendy’s rival
McDonald’s
had pledged four years ago that it would switch to a type of oil that cut the level of trans fats in its fries by half. But in April McDonald’s Chief Executive
James
Skinner
James Skinner
said the company was still testing the oil and did not know when it would make the change. Prior to that, the Golden Arches had been forced to acknowledge that the levels of trans fat in its fries was higher than originally thought.

In the meantime,
Wendy’s
is training its workers to use the corn and soy oil concoction, which has a shorter shelf life than the old version. The chain will begin frying with the oil in its 6,300 restaurants in the U.S. and Canada this August. More